Consumer taste and fashion have dictated a desire for mass-produced, but well-fitted garments, which are distributed and sold throughout the United States. Large national retailers of clothing generally contract with a plurality of clothing manufacturers to produce uniform standardized clothing, which is essentially identical from batch to batch, even though manufactured by different entities. These manufacturers in turn produce the clothing at their own plants, or in many cases, subcontract the production of the garments to manufacturers based in the Far East, for instance, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.
In the retail clothing industry clothing is typically suspended from hangers at the point of purchase. Such hangers are often inexpensive ship-on types and under prevailing garment-on-hanger programs, the garment is shipped from the manufacturer to the retailer while suspended from a hanger. Traditional garment-on-hanger pant and skirt hangers use a horizontal beam with grips at either end thereof, normally either a spring clip or a pinch grip. Inasmuch as a variety of clothing articles may be suspended from these hangers, and some articles may be rather heavy, the strength of the beam and the strength to weight ratio of the beam is important. The transoceanic shipment of these hangers and garments subject the hangers to significant inertial loads that arise as a result of sudden movements of the containers transporting the hangers and garments. To best withstand these loads, the stiffness of the hanger is important, for both horizontal deflection and torsional deflection. As a result, a significant factor in the design of the hanger is balancing the weight and cost of the plastic used in the hanger with the beam design and the loads to be carried. Further, many of these hangers are molded at locations remote from the garment manufacturer, and the weight and cube of the hangers to be shipped to a manufacturer is a significant cost factor in determining the price of the hanger. For each of the forgoing reasons, improving the stiffness and strength to weight ratio of the hanger is important.